


Capture and Rescue

by Bobblychicken



Category: Cars (Movies), Planes (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 17:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4487973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobblychicken/pseuds/Bobblychicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-Shot. Dusty Crophopper finds himself in some hot water after unwittingly allowing himself to be corner and captured by a mysterious and sinister cult of humans, known only as the Cutters. Thankfully not all humans are unaware of their activities. </p><p>Another Dusty and Clarice short. Since I'm going to stick a human OC into this fandom, I might as well write about how the two met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Capture and Rescue

Dusty had found himself cornered before he even knew what was happening. There were at least a dozen humans, six of which had managed to back him into a space too small for him to adequately maneuver in. These were the first he had ever seen up close, and he didn't like the look of the many lines of rope in the hands of the six in front of him.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you've made it clear that you're not going to just come with us willingly. Please, don't make us escalate this further.”

Dusty was quickly running out of room. Sure he could easily just run everyone over and escape but he didn't want to hurt anyone; these things looked rather fragile. But he was frightened and getting close to panicking. They were so close now. Dusty didn't want them to touch him with their hands. He shuddered at the thought of what it might feel like. Then his tail finally hit the wall behind him, and right on cue ropes were flung at him from all sides.

Why ropes? Dusty had started thrashing and was snapping them all easily, but for every one or two that he was able to get rid of there were others right back on him again. Then one of the humans hit their mark as a rope was lassoed around right behind his prop. He yanked it hard and Dusty stopped struggling almost immediately due to the intense pain it caused. The others took the chance to throw their ropes around his wings and that was it. He was really caught now. And then the humans started to pull, and Dusty had no choice but go with them as it was the only thing that would make the pain in this prop go away. They were leading him over to some odd vehicles. Not odd that he didn't recognize them, but odd in that they had no faces. They just looked like soulless shells, only moving under the control of humans. What were these things? Were they crossovers from the human side of the world, or was this what happened to those taken away by the Cutters?

_Oh god, what's going to happen to me?!_

A faceless truck was backing a rather crude flat-bed trailer into the hangar, and a large kind of forklift was laying some sort of harness like contraption on the ground. Once they had lead Dusty close enough for him to see the harness, he started to thrash again despite the pain it caused in his prop. It was half-hearted at best, but it was still giving the six humans holding him by the ropes some trouble. Then they all backed off a bit, the lines going slack as they let Dusty back up on his own, but after a few moments they began pulling him forward again, only to have him start struggling, this time a bit harder than before, but they had gotten him closer to the harness this time.

“Just relax,” the Cutter at the end of the rope attached behind his prop said to him calmly, before turning to others holding the ropes at his sides, “Okay let him go again, give him a minute.”

They were being awfully gentle, despite what their intentions might be. Like they were being just as careful not to hurt him as Dusty was in trying to avoid hurting them. But it was all just to tire him out, as they started pulling once more and he began thrashing harder than ever before. This time Dusty was able to actually get himself turned around facing away from the harness and those creepy vehicles just before his wheels touched the straps of the harness, his tail striking something with a 'thunk' as he heard someone cry out. He wasn't rewarded with another break after this third attempt, but instead the Cutters pulled in earnest now, and Dusty finally succumbed to fear, pain, and exhaustion. Like a wild animal that sometimes suddenly becomes “tame” in human hands, but only because it's given up and is expecting to be eaten soon.

Dusty allowed himself to be lead over to the harness, his tires rolling over it until the Cutters suddenly started pulling against the ropes in the opposite direction to stop him once he was in the right position. Then the others that had been milling around went to work getting the harness on him, bringing the straps up around his landing gear and wings, and then hooking them up to the forklift. Dusty whimpered as he felt himself being lifted in the air, hating the feeling. The forklift brought him over to the trailer and started lowering Dusty down onto it. It seemed almost too small as it groaned under his weight. More ropes were thrown over him, in addition to the ones that were still tied to his wings, and the Cutters then tied them all down to the cleats on the sides and back of the trailer so tight that he was almost completely immobilized.

A tarp was thrown over him and tied down as well, blinding him. Then Dusty felt the minute shake in the trailer and heard the truck's engine turn over before he could feel himself being moved. He was terrified. He was good and truly captured now, and had done a damn good job of practically letting it happen. Dusty hadn’t the foggiest idea where they were taking him or what they had planned for him once they got there. He tried to make the effort to at least keep track of the time it was taking to get to their destination, but he was too scared to concentrate. When they arrived it didn’t seem like it took them that long to get there, but when you’re blindfolded it gets hard to try to sense how far you’ve traveled. The blindfold was taken off and Dusty found himself in some sort of concrete bunker. He had the vague sense that they were somewhere underground. How far, he had no idea.

“You’ll stay here for the night.” The lead Cutter said to him. “In the morning you’ll be moved to a different part of the compound so that we can start testing. Try to get some sleep.”

Then he was left alone and the lights switched off. The politeness in the human’s tone made Dusty’s plating want to curl. He closed his eyes, shuddered, and shook it off. There was nothing to do now but wait. Wait to be torn apart, wait to be turned into something else? It was the worst feeling. Despite how gentle they had treated him, Dusty knew that there was no way that these humans intentions were anything good. He was sure that they were Cutters. He did end up falling asleep, in spite of himself. His fear and worry had sapped his strength, mental or otherwise.

XXxx

Hours later, Dusty's eyes snapped open as the lights were flipped back on. His eyes darted around and found another human, a female, he figured, walking toward him from the wall. His flaps and ailerons slowly rose and started to tremble on her approach. He didn't recognize her as one of the Cutters that brought him here. She wasn't in any kind of uniform; in fact the clothes she was wearing didn't leave a whole lot to even an airplane's imagination. Of course, his first impression of humans wasn't that great considering the circumstance, so he didn't really know what to expect. Then she took something out from under the thigh of her tattered up shorts and then flipped it open to reveal a sturdy looking and very sharp switch blade.

Dusty inhaled sharply through his intake at the sight of it, fearing that his suspicions were true. The girl paused in her movements, then slowly put her hands up in a placating gesture before moving the hand that held the switchblade and putting a finger to her lips.

“Sshh... It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you.” she soothed, slowly continuing toward him again.

Dusty watched her closely, flitting between her face and the switchblade. She raised up her free hand as if to touch him and he flinched away, closing his eyes as he started to shake.

“Don't! Please...” The girl slowly withdrew her hand.

“Okay, okay... It's alright. I'm here to help you.” She moved around to the back of him where he couldn't see and he pulled against his binds. “Hold still, now, I'm going to cut you loose.”

He could hear and feel the blade cutting into the first rope around his left wing, felt it fall away and the minute feeling of relief as just one tiny bit of freedom was restored to him. She went to work on the others, and the more he was able to move as she went along, the more excited and impatient he became.

“Get the ones off my tail, please!” he begged her, anxiety laced in his voice.

“Shh, I'm getting there.”

He could barely contain himself by the time all the ropes were cut away and she instructed him to slowly and _quietly_ get down off of the trailer. Dusty let out a huge breath once his tires touched the concrete floor of the bunker.

“Okay, let's go.” the girl whispered as she began to quietly jog toward the exit, keeping her steps light.

“Who are you?”

“Quiet. Just follow me.” she didn't look behind her. “Don't start your engine until I tell you.”

Dusty followed, flipping his running lights on, as the florescent lights that lined the tops of the concrete walls on each side weren't nearly enough for his liking. They twisted and turned on and on, and just as Dusty was wondering why they hadn't run into any guards or anything, they rounded a corner and an old classic Chevrolet pick-up came into view, robin's egg blue and faceless. Dusty nearly hit the breaks but the girl stopped him.

“It's okay, keep going, it's a friend!” she picked up her pace, “As soon as I'm on that truck, start your engine and be prepared to fly out. We're very near the exit now.”

“What's your name?”

She didn't answer, only ran up to the truck, hopping up into the back and banging on the rear window.

“Let's go, Hugh! Gun it!” Both plane and truck engines roared, the sound echoing all over the compound.

That was sure to get someone’s attention. Dusty did his best to keep up with the truck without taking flight, but soon he could see an exit and could just make out a starry sky outside of it. The truck veered to the right to give him room, but he faltered a bit and looked to the girl that helped him.

“Just go, fly away! Get out of here!” she screamed over all the noise, and he was off, all too happy to put this place behind him, but sorry that he wasn’t able to even thank his rescuer.

Once he’d achieved a nice, high altitude, he switched all of his lights off. He knew how dangerous, and not to mention illegal, it was, but it was an annoyingly clear night out and he didn’t want to be seen by anyone on the ground. He could laugh at the irony, but that could wait until later. As he flew on, the gravity of the situation, what had almost happened to him, whatever that might have been, was starting to weigh him down. All of the fear that he had felt in the chaos of the last several hours that had never really had the time to sink in struck him now. Dusty struggled to hold in everything that threatened to spill out in a delayed reaction to his capture and release. He wasn’t safe yet; it wasn’t over until he found his way back home. But what if that girl had never come?

His throat closed on the tears that were just under the surface. _Okay stop it! You can lose it when you get back to the safety of your own hangar._ He scolded himself as he struggled to fight it back down. He did eventually find his way back, and all but dove into his sleeping mat, nosing under his blankets and pillows and shrugging them over his body. Soon he was truly sobbing, his frame shaking as he tried to remain silent. It took him a good while to finally calm himself down, and he wondered idly if he would ever see the girl again as he fell into a sleep of complete exhaustion.


End file.
